New Solution From Dapper Assembles Ad Creative on the Fly

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Ad technology company Dapper is offering a way for brands to serve ads using creative elements assembled on the fly from a variety of sources.

Using the company's MashupAds solution, advertisers can deliver display ads with creative elements pulled from their own Web site, from product inventory data, and from other places. For instance, an ad could reflect inventory at a car dealership and tell a consumer where the nearest location is, plus how many units of a given model are on the lot.

The technology is similar to Yahoo's Smart Ads offering, which allows marketers to dynamically serve ads drawn from a database of marketing offers.

"By the time [consumers] actually click on that ad they've done so much of the lead generation process," said Paul Knegten, head of marketing for Dapper. "They've done so much based on information, based on what he's browsing."

Dapper has offered its MashupAds since earlier this year, but until now the company had to be involved in creating the units. This week's upgrade, available as a beta program, lets advertisers create the ads themselves by defining areas of their Web site from which ad creative can be populated. The ads are then produced on the fly when a consumer calls up a page.

A new "mini-store" ad unit consists of a 120 x160 banner within which a variety of merchandise can be featured. The Gap plans to run a mini-store unit in an upcoming campaign. Also to come is a campaign from a major media company.

One of Dapper's publisher partners is Fodors.com. The travel publisher has the ability to add Dapper MashupAds features when selling to advertisers. "A lot of advertisers are signing up with Fodors to do this," said Knegten. "We've got them going with most of the hotel chains."

In December Dapper plans to release a light version of its advertising platform to publishers and ad networks. It will be a free, basic version of MashupAds, with the ability to serve dynamic ads and smaller CPM buys. Publishers will have to upgrade to a paid account to get more advanced features.